Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/440

426 the fragrant mixture, "Just so—just so," Sir Claude said again and again. "It's awfully awkward!" he exclaimed when the waiter had gone.

"That she won't go?"

Well—everything! Well, well, well!" But he pulled himself together; he began again to eat. "I came back to ask you something. That 's what I came back for."

"I know what you want to ask me," Maisie said.

"Are you very sure?"

"I'm almost very."

"Well, then, risk it. You mustn't make me risk everything."

She was struck with the force of this. "You want to know if I should be happy with them."

"With those two ladies only? No, no, old man: vous-n'y-êtes pas. So now—there!" Sir Claude laughed.

"Well then, what is it?"

The next minute, instead of telling her what it was, he laid his hand across the table on her own and held her as if under the prompting of a thought. "Mrs. Wix would stay with her?"

"Without you? Oh yes—now."